Alchemist aus Stahl
by reminiscent-afterthought
Summary: [AU] At eight, he finds a book that could give him the life he lost. It fails, and he turns to the unknown author to help him make it right, but finding him is no easy task...but it's a walk in the park compared to what comes after.
1. Finding the Book

**Alchemistaus Stahl**

**Chapter 1  
Finding the Book**

Harry Potter wasn't a normal child, nor was he widely liked. That however said nothing of his personality, although it spoke volumes in regards to his upbringing. His parents died on the night of Halloween following his first birthday, and he had lived with his Aunt Petunia, his mother's only sister and her family ever since. And due to the rather…rocky relationship the two Evans siblings had enjoyed during the years preceding, he wasn't quite as pampered as his cousin. Of course, there was also the fact that he wasn't their biological son to consider, so all in all it didn't seem too abnormal to anyone that he wasn't received as well and had to work for his place in the house.

That didn't make life without parents very enjoyable though, and far too often Harry dreamed of how his life would have been if they'd still been alive. He knew nothing about them: his aunt and uncle would tell him to shut up if he asked, so all he had were the little crayon drawings he'd done in a little corner of his cupboard when he was four. He'd drawn his mother in red for some reason: often, he wondered if that was his subconsciousness telling him she had red hair or liked wearing dresses that were the colour red. His father on the other hand was brown, and Harry could never decide if his subconscious was informing him to hair colour or skin tone, or possibly both.

He had no photos, and nobody in Little Whinging knew any more about his parents than he himself. His teachers didn't like him particularly much, though that was more Dudley's doing than his own. After all, when Dudley didn't do his homework (which was always) and bullied Harry's homework away from him (which was most of the time), it was Harry who got into trouble. And if Harry should do well on a test, he'd be regarded with suspicion – because how could a child who never did his homework score highly on his tests without cheating? Of course, they could never prove he was cheating – and he wasn't – but that didn't change the way they regarded him.

The librarian was nicer, and more sympathetic. He offered Harry first dibs on new books that came in, and often recommended older ones he was sure the other would enjoy. In fact, he was the one who taught Harry how to read in the first place, and who helped in out in his studies when he struggled. Because he wasn't the school's librarian but the one for the public library, he couldn't know the trouble Harry got into because of his cousin – and Dudley wouldn't step foot inside a library if he could help it.

Mrs Figg was somewhere in between. She was old and smelly and had way too many cats, but she treated him far better than the Dursleys did. She wasn't quite grandmother material, and her cooking was horrendous, but she always made sure to give Harry a little treat when babysitting him. And Harry was sure that if he went there after bruising from Dudley's punches, he'll find the bruises feeling far better when he left. But there was also some other lingering feeling that followed him, something that kept him from completely enjoying his time there.

So, all in all, the library was his favourite place to be, and the only place he went by choice. Four Privet Drive was a place he spent only as much time as necessary in, and while Mrs Figg's place was a step up, he'd never been there without being forced by his Aunt and Uncle. The library however was a place he always went when he was free, to bury himself into a book and wish magic was real so that it could make his dreams come true and give his parents back to him.

Except such magic didn't seem to exist in the real world, even when he tried to find pixie rings in the back garden or bluebells on the way home from school.

Still, he tried. That was all he had after all: the hope that magic did exist, and could help him out. Because no-body else could help him. _Reality_ couldn't help him. He wasn't going to get into a good high school or get a good job and find a happily ever after ending. Even if his Aunt and Uncle didn't put him down for the local equivalent, his marks would see him there. And there were nothing but delinquents at Stonewall High. Harry, skinny little good Harry, wouldn't last two weeks in a school like that.

But he couldn't avoid it either, because his life wasn't nearly as bad as it could be, and he'd last for even less time if he was left on the streets. After all, he had a roof over his head, and two meals a day on average and he had clothes on his back and went to school and everything. Sometimes he read about less fortunate people, people like Oliver Twist who reminded Harry remarkably of himself, who'd asked for a little more than he had and wound up with nothing for a while. Harry certainly didn't want to wind up like that; the chances of finding some long lost grandparent was about the same as his parents being magically raised from the dead. Worse probably, since he technically had family: his Aunt Petunia.

Still, the library was the place to be for him. He never could spend hours there, because he'd have some chore or other to do in the morning and the library only opened until four. But he could live in the lap of magic while he was there, reading books where children could travel to innocent worlds where nothing ever went wrong, or even the darker magic which could change the past or the future. The sort of magic that could turn lead into gold and bring people back to life.

Those were his favourite books to read, and the ones he always sought out first when he came to the library. He'd read most of them several times by now, but he'd read them again and again if he could. It left a deep aching in his chest when he left of course, but it was worth it to be able to dream for a bit. And sometimes he'd give in to the temptation and believe as well. Smell thyme and try and travel to the past. Toss a rock into a puddle (because he was in shortage of coins and rivers) and wish upon it. Draw things in the soil and hope the magic circles would do something…magical. Wave a stick and hope it would turn into a wand. None of those happened, naturally, but it was nice to dream.

And he was planning to do so that day as well, arriving at the library at half past two after finishing his chores for the day and escaping before he got more after lunch. He didn't mind forgoing said lunch in the process: it would only be dried bread anyway, and he hadn't done anything energetically draining throughout the day.

He waved a customary greeting to the librarian, who stopped him before he headed off to the fiction books. 'Got a few interesting stuff delivered this morning,' the librarian explained. 'Not fiction books mind you, but I think this is something you'll be interested in anyway. A bit over the reading ability of an eight year old, but you're one of the most advanced readers I've ever met.' He looked proud too, and no wonder; he was the one who'd taught Harry how to read in the first place. 'Naturally, this isn't the original copy; it's been translated quite a bit since it was written in…the 1900s I think.' He scanned the inside cover and nodded. '1920, in fact. Quite old.'

He offered the book, and Harry took it, reading the back curiously. It seemed to be an account of something or other, a mix between the facts of the German Holocaust and something called Alchemy. It sounded a little like Anne Frank's diary, though a little more content-heavy he noted as he flicked through the pages. There were diagrams too, things that reminded him of the pixie rings and magic circles, and he found himself turning to the first page and starting to read before the librarian cleared his throat. 'I take it you're interested?'

Harry lifted his eyes from the page to nod eagerly, and the librarian chucked, fishing under the desk for a sticky note. He found a yellow pad quickly enough, and scrawled a note to himself before attaching it to the computer screen. 'I'll keep it behind the desk when you go home,' he said kindly, knowing that, for whatever reason, Harry never took books home with him. 'It'll wait for you until you're done.'

Harry nodded and said his thanks, relieved the librarian never asked why he didn't borrow his books instead. The truth was he worried about his Aunt and Uncle's reaction: they abhorred the very mention of magic, and they probably wouldn't like him reading fiction books anyway. 'That junk'll give you crazy ideas,' his Uncle would scoff, conveniently forgetting that Dudley's TV shows were filled with even less beneficial material. But that was how his family was, and Harry couldn't really do anything about it.

He carried the book to a quiet corner of the library and started carefully reading.

.

.

**A/N: **Some notes about the context:

Harry is currently eight years old, three years before he'll get his letter for Hogwarts. So the year would be 1988. The events of Conqueror of Shamballa took place around 1918 if I'm remembering right (and I'm probably not; it's been over three years since I saw it last). FMA stuff will become more apparent as the story progresses, so I think that's all the relevant information you need for now. :D

The pixie ring and the thyme come from two books I've read: one of Enid Blyton's ones (can't remember which), and The Time Garden by Edward Eager III.


	2. Happy Family

**Alchemistaus Stahl**

**Chapter 2  
Happy Family**

Harry tried to organise his thoughts as he walked home. The book he'd been reading was complicated even with the helpful footnotes provided, but it had sparked his interest nonetheless. It claimed everything that existed had a certain energy, and that energy could never be lost or more created. By that, it followed the laws of physics he'd read in science textbooks, but this book went further to say that what was broken could be repaired and what was made could be reverted back to its starting materials, and that the energy that governed _life_ was also in the same balance.

That meant that people who were alive could die (a fact he was well aware of), and that dead people could be brought back to life (a dream that he'd clung to). Unfortunately, he was yet to reach the mechanics of that; following this assumption, the book began to talk about the construction of the human body. Some of the chemicals, like carbon and water, he recognised. Others, particularly the ones that had very small percentages next to them, he did not. They could be found though, he was sure. The book had mentioned all the ingredients listed could be brought with a child's allowance. He got an allowance…sometimes, and far more meagre than his cousin's. He'd saved it up.

Once he arrived home though, he was forced to put those thoughts out of his mind. His Aunt Petunia was waiting for him with a scolding and a list of chores, starting with cleaning the garage out while she sorted through what was to keep and what was to throw away. He bore it without complaint; sometimes, when he was feeling exceptionally bitter, he would give in to temptation and earn a slap for his efforts, but he was feeling almost giddy that day. Perhaps it was the scientific nature of that book that made it more realistic, or that it wasn't a fantasy book in the fantasy section of the library but rather translated from a _real_ paper that adults that didn't believe in fairy tales wrote. But whatever it was, the possibility of him being able to live with his parents again was there, buried under layers of failed attempts and despairs.

He wouldn't have had much hope trying again, except the garage was mostly filled with things from Dudley's babyhood. And each one Harry moved (carefully, because his Aunt Petunia didn't want to throw away anything that belonged to his sweet little Duddy-poo) reminded Harry of the dream world in which he lived happily with his parents, in which he'd had a walker and a high chair and a bib with cute little dinosaurs (though, for some reason, he envisioned the brown and green replaced with red and gold) and baby rattles that made noise when he accidentally shook them. Petunia cooed over each of them, and Harry listened with half a year as he piled them up in the "to keep" pile.

Maybe he'd had things like that with his parents before they'd been killed in that accident, or maybe he hadn't. His Aunt Petunia called his father a drunk and his mother a good for nothing woman, but he'd met Grandma Evans a few times in his early years before she passed away from old age, and she'd told him not to listen to his Aunt Petunia when it came to his parents. 'They were both wonderful people,' she'd said to him. 'Your Aunt Petunia was just very jealous of your mother, and upset that Lily got an opportunity that Petunia never got. That wound never really healed.'

Harry chose to believe his Grandma Evans over his Aunt, because it made him happy to think of his parents as wonderful people. And wonderful parents would have spoilt him just a tad – maybe not as much as Dudley, who seemed often to have been spoiled beyond repair – but a bit. All babies in books had at least one rattle after all, and even restaurants had high chairs for babies. Not that he'd ever been in a restaurant, but Dudley had done one of those "what you did on your weekend" presentations on a visit of his own.

There were other things in the garage that weren't Dudley-related, but they were fewer and less interesting. Though Harry did find some copper wires Petunia ordered into the "throw out" pile. Copper was on the list of things that made up a human body, Harry recalled. He made a mental note of the wires…and some old match packs he found later too (for the sulphur). They weren't useable as matches anymore; the box had gotten wet at some point, prompting Petunia to order Harry onto the garage roof to find a hole in the tin. He found the hole easily enough: it was small, but he could see it as plainly as a hole in the road. It wasn't something he could fix though, and mercifully it seemed Petunia understood that, because she called him back down and made an appointment with someone who could.

Harry continued sorting through the things. He found bedtime stories he envisioned his parents reading to him as they tucked him in for bed, a rocking chair his mother could have sat in while pregnant with him, or when he struggled to sleep. Some more bits and pieces, this time plastic of some sort and useless to everybody. Old school things from Dudley and Harry, the former of which were kept and the latter tossed out.

Petunia gave Harry the chance to look through them though, in case there was anything he wanted to keep. And he kept one thing. His marks weren't anything to be proud of after all and weren't work immortalising. The picture of his family though was important. Of the man and woman he imagined to be his parents, because he didn't even know what they looked like.

On the back of the picture was another one. He'd drawn his aunt, uncle and cousin before Dudley noticed and taunted him. Even at that age, they'd both known Harry wasn't really a part of the family.

Harry set the picture aside and continued digging through the things. He came across another box and opened it, taking out some clothes. They looked like spare cloth nappies, changing mats and other things, and Petunia wrinkled her nose at them and guestued to the throwaway pile. Harry obeyed – but then something caught on the edge of the box and fall into his hands.

It was a blanket, one that didn't fit with anything else of Dudley's parenthood, being a pale yellow and with a strange crest in one corner. He picked it up and felt it; unlike the rest of the things in the garage, it wasn't dusty but rather smelt fresh – and like lemon, he thought.

Petunia's face turned into a lemon-like expression as well: all sour and wrinkled. 'Throw that away,' she said sharply.

Harry looked up in surprise, protest dying in his throat. It was such a beautiful little blanket: too beautiful to waste, but the look in his aunt's eyes was like the look she had whenever he asked about his parents, or whenever he managed to do something strange. Like the time he'd been trying to summon a fairy and had summoned a garden snake instead.

He put the blanket into the "throw away" pile and continued sorting. However, when he got the chance, he snuck it under his too-loose clothes and tucked it, when he returned to his cupboard bedroom, safely under his bed along with the metals he'd collected. He got the feeling the blanket was special: that it was _his_ and not Dudleys – perhaps even the blanket he'd been wrapped in when left at the Dursleys. The thought of that kept him wide-eyed and awake as he lay on his creaking bed and felt a spider scurry about on his chest as though it were a dance board. His blanket: something that belonged to him, given by his parents. Or it could have been someone else: whoever dropped him off at the Dursleys in the first place, or just a neighbour. But his parents were the most likely candidate, and the one he wished so dearly to be true.

When it was dark and the house was silent apart from his own breathing, he pulled the blanket out of its hiding place and hugged it close. He imagined one of his parents liking lemon, using lemon flavoured detergent so his father's shirt and mother's dress smelt like that as well. And he imagined his parents sorting through all _his_ baby things and cooing over them, like Aunt Petunia had with Dudley's. He imagined all the stories that arose from them, all the memories they cherished of him – unlike Petunia ordering his baby blanket into the trash.

The edges of his eyes brimmed with tears and he drank in the lemon smell like a drowning man, allowing himself to slip into sleep and dreaming of lemon coloured walls and scented laundry and a woman in a sun-yellow dress.


	3. What Makes a Human Body

**Alchemistaus Stahl**

**Chapter 3  
What Makes a Human Body**

Harry returned to the book often, trying to filter through its wealth of information. There was a lot about bringing a dead person back to life, and so far he'd covered three quarters of the book and made several pages of notes for himself. The notes he'd been careful to hide; the book was from the science section of the library, but he had a feeling his aunt and uncle wouldn't see things that way.

Even if it hadn't been called a science, Harry thought he would still believe in alchemy. Just like he'd believed in pixie dust and fairy magic and all those other things in fairy tales. Even if his relatives did hate things like that. He wasn't his relatives after all. He wanted to believe there was something out there that could make his parents come back to him.

And why not? The book made some pretty good arguments on that note as well. Like how energy couldn't be lost. Like how souls were recycled through something called a port. Like how any reaction could be reversed if nothing had been replaced.

'Creation cannot occur without destruction.' Harry read the book's starting lines again aloud. 'Destruction cannot occur without creation; that is the balance of the world. That is the law of equality: the law of equivalence.'

And it went on: for every hardship, something must be gained. For every happy moment in a person's life, an equal amount of sadness must be paid thereafter. For every success, a failure must follow. That was the law of the world, the law of equivalence.

Almost naively, Harry wondered if the world really was in such perfect balance, if science really was so infallible. Sure, they learnt about the laws of science at school: how gravity was inescapable, how the times of the day and the dates of the year were set by the cycles of the sun, moon and earth, and their orbits. But was it that perfect? Was the deaths of his parents a part of that orbit? Was him growing up without a loving family a part of that?

It didn't seem fair at all…but if it had been for a reason, maybe it was so he could find the secret of bringing them back. So he could pass this hurdle on his own – maybe that was even why this book had come into his hands. So he could bring his parents back to life and they could live happily thereafter. Maybe the first eight years of his life was a payment for their happiness: the sadness he'd felt when he saw other happily living families, even the Durselys, so far from him. Why couldn't his aunt and uncle and cousin love him like they loved each other? Why couldn't they just do that?

His shoulders shook and he snapped the book shut, some of his notes creasing from the force. The librarian heard the sound and came over, placing a hand on his shoulder and guiding him to the more comfortable couch. Harry rubbed his eyes beneath the rims of his glasses, willing his tears into silence. Instead, they came with even more force, and it took a while and the old librarian rubbing soothing circles onto his back before they dulled.

'I'm sorry,' Harry gulped, rubbing away the last of his tears.

'It's alright, son,' the librarian replied, in his deep, comforting voice. 'There are times when we all need to relieve ourselves of the sorrows of our heart, and it is especially difficult when one has no parents or siblings to talk with.'

Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon could have acted more like his parents. Dudley could have acted more like his brother. Instead, he was like a housekeeper to them. A servant like in A Little Princess. He even had the cupboard under the stairs, like her attic, and borrowed clothes, like her black frock and her too big shirts and pants and such from Dudley. Except Harry didn't have anyone like Becky, no-one to help him out and cheer him up when he felt down – and he probably wouldn't be lucky enough to find a fortune waiting for him in some vault.

The librarian, naturally, didn't know much about what went on back on Number Four Privet Drive; he just knew that Harry didn't get a chance to read at home and therefore didn't bother making a card. Harry pretended he was playing Dudley's video games, or watching Dudley's TV, or riding Dudley's tricycle – in short, he pretended he was more like Dudley, as his aunt and uncle said a normal person was. But they also said a normal person didn't enjoy reading – but the librarian didn't seem to find anything strange about it. In fact, he encouraged it: encouraged him to come to the library and read, if that was the only place he could read.

And Harry had done exactly that and nothing else, except pretend to do the things that Dudley did some more, until the day he suddenly began crying in the library.

'Would you like to talk about it?' the librarian coaxed.

Harry shook his head slowly; he couldn't, couldn't tell anyone else what he was feeling, what he wanted. He was like a dirty little secret, but to say he was ungrateful for his life would be even worse. And his aunt and uncle would be so angry to find out yet another person in the world knew about their relationship, knew about the freak that lived on Number Four Privet Drive with them.

'I've thought,' the librarian added, slowly, drawing his hand away, 'that you look very lonely when you come here, like someone who's been adopted, someone who longs for their real family.' He paused. 'You've always had an interest in magic: lonely kids tend to either believe wholeheartedly in it or dismiss it entirely – there is no middle ground for them. I wonder why that is.'

'I'm not adopted,' Harry said quietly, and that was all he could say without letting all his feelings spill out from his chest.

'You're still lonely,' the librarian said, equally quietly. 'Books are good company, but people who can love and understand you are the best.'

**.**

The librarian had always been a gentle and kind man, but he'd snuck too close to home that time and Harry did not return to the book afterwards. He was afraid the man would work out more if he did: see what pages he was focusing on, what he was planning, what he really was –

And he had all the information he needed anyway. The magic circles – transmutation circles, the book said – and the list of ingredients he needed. Thirty-five litres of water – which he could just get out of the garden tap. Twenty kilograms of carbon – not so easy to find in such high quantities, but he could get burnt up coal from the train station if he had to. Four litres ammonia – which was in the detergent and cleaning products that his aunt Petunia made him use. One and a half kilos of lime – which were sometimes used in making pickles, and there were some in the pantry now. Eight hundred grams of phosphorus – another trickier one, as matchsticks wouldn't quite cover it and the Dursleys didn't own a pool. Still, a bottle of the water cleaner would cost less than what he had saved. Eighty grams of sulphur was apparently easy to find in nature apparently. 100 grams of salt pepper – another thing that was in the Dursley's pantry. Five grams iron, which he already had from the garage, as well as the three grams of silicon. Seven and a half grams fluorine, from toothpaste, and trace amounts of fifteen other elements, one of which being copper and he also had. And then all of that again for another human.

It wouldn't be terribly difficult to track down everything he didn't already have. He'd saved up enough, though the coal would be an awkward one to buy. Separating them would have been a more difficult job, but it didn't seem necessary; the extra stuff simply wouldn't be used in the reaction. That was what the book said – or assumed – and if everything was in balance, that should work perfectly, he assumed.

He started collecting the things he needed, putting them together in his little cupboard and leaving the big stuff like coal till last. Water would be last of all, since he could get it right from the source, but things like the match-sticks he had to start early. Sometimes he did feel guilty, sneaking them under his aunt's sharp stare or his uncle's firm hand, but then he saw their faces, devoid of smile while looking at him, and full of open love when looking at his cousin, and the longing for his parents increased. Then he'd throw even more energy into sneaking materials into his hands.

He was putting everything he had into this. The transmutation was demanding a lot more than a pixie ring or any other sort of spell he'd tried so far, and he was giving all of that effort. He couldn't think it could fail; he wouldn't allow himself to think it could fail.

And he didn't know what he would do if it did.

**.**

**.**

**A/N:** To those of you familiar with FMA, Ed actually isn't the author of the book. :D You'll have to wait to find out who it is though – but Ed is one of the sources of the book.

There are several ways to say "Gate" in German. One of those is "Tor", which can also translate to door or port. I've used port because it's a little different from a gate; something that can happen when translating things across languages. Port will still give Harry the gist of the idea, but not the entire picture. Transmutation on the other hand doesn't seem to have an alternative. I'm just using Google Translate here, since I don't speak a word of German or know anyone who does.


	4. Looking for the Dead

**Alchemistaus Stahl**

**Chapter 4  
Looking For the Dead**

The book and its author – a name which, in its translated version, was beyond his current abilities to pronounce – knew a lot about what made up the human body, but it didn't seem to know much about the soul. There were several suggestions: another living thing, be that a human or even a little ant; something that contained the genetic material of that soul, like blood from a relative and thoughts of memories. Harry didn't much like the original idea; his cousin wouldn't have any trouble catching a moth or a butterfly to use – but his cousin had parents who loved him and would give the world for him. Harry didn't. That was the whole point.

And Harry didn't like the idea of sacrificing another living thing, no matter how small. Maybe it came from being small himself; there was no shortage of spiders if it really came to it, but a spider was still alive. Just like ants and garden snakes and butterflies. Just like him. It all made him feel rather insignificant. But blood was an easier thing: he had a plenitude of it, wasting away from the cuts and scrapes that came from everyday life. Whether he cut himself on the fences at school climbing them to get away from Dudley, or on the sharp knives in the kitchen cooking, or on a thorn in the garden, that blood was wasting away. It would be far better used to revive his parents – and he only needed a few drops. A wound not even big enough for a band aid could give him that.

The memories were more of a problem: he only had ill-remembered dreams and whispered scrapes from his relatives. He needed more; he needed to _know_ his parents, so he could truly have them back. Otherwise they'd just be dolls or something to that effect.

Actually, the book wasn't sure about that, but it suggested it, and Harry woke up several nights since then in a cold sweat, seeing the cold unfeeling faces of the man and woman in the photograph he'd once seen at his grandmother's house.

If only she were still alive, he could have asked her more. But she wasn't. The only person he knew that knew his parents was Aunt Petunia, but he didn't think he'd be able to convince her to tell. He remembers his grandmother though, and he wonders if he should first bring her back and ask her, but his eight year old wonders if he'll only remember what he recalled for her when she came back. And he'd met her so few times he didn't really know her.

He realised quickly he was thinking himself into a corner. One question brought another question and the doubt accumulated. He tried to push them away, because he was suddenly afraid: afraid he couldn't bring his parents back the way he wanted them, the way they were supposed to be. But the teachers at school always said to believe in oneself, didn't they? That applied here too…right?

Harry took a deep breath and repeated that to himself. After all, no-one knew a person perfectly. They _couldn't_ require memories that detailed.

It didn't even occur to him that resurrecting a human might never have actually worked before. It was in the book, even if he was still on its second chapter, the one after the introduction. Even if there was so many intricate details he didn't understand, even with the footnotes. But all the dots connected without it – all the dots except the ones regarding memories and the soul, because the author didn't sound particularly sure about them either. But it said either method would work: the living soul, or the information that made it up, that lived in a relatives blood. _His_ blood.

It took a few more days before the nightmares of failure subsided and gave way to hopeful dreams, and he waited patiently. Waited because he didn't want to fail. He _couldn't_ fail.

**.**

He picked a day his aunt, uncle and cousin were busy entertaining guests, and he was left to himself in the cupboard. He wasn't imagining any loud flashes and bangs, and the presence of guests meant he wouldn't be interrupted. Knowing earlier that day there would be visitors, he'd snuck everything else that remained into his cupboard. Luckily, Aunt Petunia was too harried to notice she was missing a bucket.

It was a tight squeeze, but by stacking things on top of each other, Harry had managed it. The cupboard fit his bed after all, and there was still a bit of growing room left in it. Perhaps enough to last him till he turned eleven. Maybe twelve. He didn't know what would happen after that, but by that time it was hopeful dreams of a happy family that filled his mind, so it didn't even matter.

It wasn't completely dark; the grating was left open, which was a relief. His uncle usually only shut it if curious kids were coming; they'd peek otherwise. But he left it open other times, because often that was Harry's only source of light and air without leaving the door open or turning on the light (which would raise questions, considering how obvious it would be), and the Dursleys did give him his basic human needs, if not much else besides. He had a dry piece of bread as well: his dinner, but that was less important.

The dinner could wait. He had everything he needed to complete the transmutation, and now that he had the perfect opportunity and had convinced himself it would work, there was no reason to wait any longer. He _couldn't_ wait any longer.

He drew the circle painsickeningly in the poor light, removing things when they got in the way and replacing them afterwards. His back and knees and elbows hurt by the time he was done, but it was as perfect a copy of the transmutation circle in the book as he could make it, and that was what mattered. All the bits and pieces he'd collected were stacked in a fragile tower in the middle. He'd been careful to make sure not a single thing fell beyond the boundaries, that everything was properly arranged. He'd stood the bed up against the wall so he'd have more space. The floor was for the circle…and his parents.

His hands were steady as he added the last thing, a few drops of blood while thinking viciously about what he knew about his parents, how they looked. But they shook when he sunk to his knees beside the circle, ready to channel his energy into it. The doubt returned like a little shadow in the corner of his mind but he shoved it away. It wasn't the time for doubts. His parents would come back to him. They would!

A few tears splashed on to his hands regardless, and he brushed them away. His chest was so full of emotion he thought it would burst; he could see his parents again! They'd hug him, tell him they loved him, raise him like the wonderful parents they simply had to be because Aunt Petunia just didn't like his mother and told lies about the both of them.

Once, Harry had believed those lies. But never whole-heartedly, and less so once Grandma Evans had told him how much his aunt had hated his mother from their childhood. He couldn't trust the little snippets she gave after that, and he didn't want to. He had hope his mother was the kind woman who'd leave a feathery kiss on his forehead as he drifted off to sleep, who'd wear a yellow sundress and smile, or be warm and inviting in a red glow. And he had hope his father, whom no-one else seemed to know, wasn't a drunken man who'd gotten he and his wife killed, but a kind strong one, who'd create fireworks for his son because that little baby was the whole world to him.

Harry didn't know if those dreams were real or his own longing, but he, in the face of hope, believed them more than his aunt's words. And it was those memories that filled his mind, that plunged towards reality, that filled his heart as he finally clapped his hands sharply and slammed them into the circle.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then energy surged through his body, causing his skin to tingle and his hair to stand on end. Something cracked somewhere, and Harry looked up in alarm. But it wasn't the tower of human body constituents falling. It was the energy within him climbing to new heights.

His vision became yellow, then white. Something echoed in his ears: not a voice, but the spitting cackles of wild electricity in enclosed space. Shadows ran around him, outside the circle. He couldn't make them out though: his attention was inside, where the mass of things he'd grouped and piled were ripping themselves apart and stitching themselves together into new shapes. Once the background was pure white they looked humanoid, but by then his eyes were watering so badly he could only make out the vague shapes.

And then even they were gone in the white, and he screamed after them, hands lifting off the circle to try and reach them.

**.**

**.**

**A/N:** Sorry for the delay in posting this chapter; it was supposed to be done on the bus on Thursday, but my battery died (I need a new laptop I think). And the weekend was…rather busy.

And thank you to everyone; no-one's guessed the mystery author yet, so keep guessing. :D And to those of you who know German…I'm not sure how much detail it's going to require (my plan's rather loose), but if I need help, I'll definitely ask. :)


	5. The Gate of Truth

**Alchemist aus Stahl**

**Chapter 5  
The Gate of Truth**

He was standing in front of a gate too tall to see the top of. It was grey, almost white…but not quite. Not like anything he'd ever seen before. And the symbols…he could only stare at those in awe, stare and wonder what story they told, what message they tried to pass on to him and failed to.

It was a gate with so many intricacies that he could spend a lifetime trying to replicate it and never succeed – even if he did have any artistic talent, which he was told to always lack. The teachers claimed his fantasies too outlandish: the dreams of magic being a reality, of green light being able to kill and flying motorcycles. His family was no better; they didn't want to hear anything that impinged on their idea of reality – and magic was at the foremost of those things. Science however was not: since was at the forefront of the world's progression, his uncle Vernon always said. So science was something Harry could quietly enjoy, something his aunt and uncle approved of. They didn't scold him for his interest anyway, so long as his interest didn't affect Dudley in any way. And it didn't; Harry's cousin couldn't care less about his marks, and Vernon who had gotten his own school and position due to influence as opposed to smarts, did not care either.

Or maybe they did care a little, and were hoping that Harry would serve, if nothing else, as some encouragement. And maybe it would, if Dudley cared his good for nothing cousin was better at school than him – but school didn't matter. Having parents mattered. Having friends mattered. Having recognition mattered. Harry had none of those, except for his reputation for outlandish tales. His parents were dead, dead in a alcohol-caused car crash they claimed: not a proud way at all to go. He had no friends; he was small, skinny, quiet and spend too much time thinking of fantasies. He didn't have people skills like Dudley; he couldn't even copy them. Even if Dudley hadn't been around; even if his aunt and uncle treated him like their son, he doubted that would have changed. Sure, they spoiled Dudley a bit. Sure, they kept their distance from him – but he kept his distance from them as well. Not once had he ever tried to initiate a conversation with them that didn't involve his parents in any way.

But why was he thinking about them? It was his parents that should have been consuming his thoughts: the transmutation he'd just attempted – that had done something, _had_ to have done something, because this massive gate before him now hadn't been there before.

'Another human transmutation huh.' Harry jumped and spun around, seeing a shapeless body the same colour as the gate behind him lounging casually on the ground. The mouth was the only distinguishable part: shark like in its grin. 'Do you know the Truth?'

'Truth?' Harry repeated, blank. It had worked, hadn't it? He'd felt the energy; a gate had appeared. Were his parents behind that gate? Or was there something more he had to do? 'Where are my parents?!'

'Through the gate.' The shark-like grin widened. 'Do you want to see?'

Of course he did. Giddiness was shooting through his body; his parents were there. He'd done it. He'd actually done it.

'Go ahead then.'

Harry didn't even realise the gate had opened, that something had wrapped around his wrists and ankles, until they yanked him in.

**.**

Information, facts on top of facts, bombarded him. At first he understood none of it: the words were totally foreign to him, as though they were a different language, one he couldn't speak. But he didn't need to; he wasn't there for the information; he was there for his parents, and he'd see them soon. He was sure he would. But those bits of information slowly began to connect together, make sense, becoming random facts: trivia tossed to him, with no real consequence. Then they started connecting, threading together into a story that slowly began to build up in his mind.

And with each new bit of information fitting itself into that puzzle, the hopeful family reunion got further and further away. There was a gaping hole in the tale: the entire formula of human transmutation was running through his head, fully memorised, fully understood – but there was something missing, something not there –

And if there was something missing, that meant he had failed.

'And now, your payment.'

**.**

He was back before the gate, staring at the patterns that he now understood, head still reeling from the information loaded into his brain. Alchemy was no longer a vague idea he'd tried to follow without fully understanding: it was like the words he spoke every day, engraved into his blood. The world had been decomposed and recreated in his mind; he could state every formula, draw every circle – but the missing bit of knowledge in human transmutation screamed loudest in his mind, and it brought tears to his eyes when the gate slammed shut, along with the hope he'd had.

'Why?' he cried, fat tears spilling and tumbling down his cheeks. 'I just want my parents back!' The facts tumbled in his head, none of them what he wanted. 'What did I do wrong?! What?!'

He thought that was despair he felt: he'd invested too much into that transmutation; it had failed him, killed his hope. There was still a hole there, a hole in the knowledge that that boy was mocking him with. 'Who are you?!'

'I am Truth.' The shark grin was there, constant, but the rest of him had changed. He looked like Harry now: Harry's green eyes, knobby knees, wild black hair. 'I am you.'

'Me?' The tears didn't stop. 'Then why aren't you helping me?! Don't you want to see Mum and Dad too?! Don't you want them back?!'

He couldn't understand, he couldn't understand why a part of himself, _any_ part of himself, wouldn't want his parents back. It had been too long a goal. Too complete.

'I did help.' The other him, Truth, stood up and now he looked exactly like Harry did. His voice had even changed to match like a doppelgänger, a clone. 'I gave you the information you wanted.'

'No!' Harry stumbled forward, small fists curling. He was normally quiet, in control. He had to be, with no way to vent, no person to share his tears with and only fantasy to give him his hope – but he couldn't do that here. He couldn't do that when the last hope he'd had had crumbled away, beyond reach. If he could reach for it, he would, but if all that information in his head didn't have the answer he would never find it.

He fell to his knees, and the other him dropped to one as well, kneeling down so their eyes were level again. 'Tell me, Harry James Potter,' he said with a smirk, 'What is the price for human life?'

Harry looked at him, looked as the lookalike became the colour of the gate and unformed again, a spread of grey that consumed his vision utterly.

**.**

The world stank of phosphorus and dirt and copper, and Harry threw up before he quite registered the scene. The stack of materials had disappeared, forming two misshapen bodies in the centre, neither of them distinct. Blood crawled from them, crawled as though it were alive, fleeing – towards him, soaking his pants legs, his sleeves…

And the bodies were moving, the hands blindly clawing for him, the heads lifting unnaturally even as the eyes rolled in the sockets, staring though it couldn't possibly see. It was like a horror movie, zombies rising from the grave without conscience or heart or even a complete body – and they were incomplete, inhuman.

He scampered back, back slamming into the door to his cupboard which swung upon without resistance. He didn't realise how strange that was; he could only see the hands clawing on the floor, the legs bending at unnatural angles as they tried to find a hold, the head lolling as the eyes rolled around in the sockets, trying to see…

He screamed when one of the hands touched him, claw like and blood covered and causing stars to flash before his eyes. Somehow he got his feet beneath him, his legs working, his instincts in full flight mode.

And he ran. He bolted through the passage way, into the living room. It didn't matter his aunt and uncle had guests over – he didn't even remember it. It didn't matter he was supposed to be locked in his cupboard; he didn't remember that either. It didn't matter that they hated the very mention of his parents or of anything unnatural; they were the only people he could run to, and so he ran to them. Maybe he was hoping for comfort, the comfort that, from his parents, had been ultimately denied. Maybe he was hoping for hope, or for reality to awaken him from that nightmarish dream.

He found none of those waiting for him.

**.**

**.**

**A/N:** Okay, so the transmutation failed but I haven't quite said what he's lost. Can anyone guess from this chapter what it was? I dropped some hints earlier too. If not; next chapter will say it all. :D The mystery author reveal is coming up soon too (can't tell how soon), so keep guessing until then. :) It's a canon FMA character if that helps any.

Thank you to everyone for your lovely reviews. Once uni gives me a nice break, I'm hoping to go back and fix those SPaG errors you've pointed out to me. Also, a special thanks to Saia-chan for pointing out the error of the title (this is where google translate fails :D It gave the translation without the space when I did it). I've fixed that in the main and for this chapter, but I'll fix it for the previous chapters when I fix up the other spelling mistakes as well. Thanks for letting me know!

I hope Harry's little breakdown didn't come out OOC; it was really difficult writing that scene for a number of reasons. But that was essentially what I was leading up to, so hopefully I did that well.

I'm starting the next chapter tomorrow (since this one was quite late), so cross your fingers for a second update this week.

One last thing. A guest asked if Harry's blanket smelt like lemon because of Dumbledore's candies…actually, lemon was a random choice of Muggle detergent smells, so it was the detergent Lily used to wash it all the time. :D Though that's an interesting idea; I wouldn't be surprised if it does creep in now that you've mentioned it.

Sorry for the long wait everyone! I hope you enjoyed this chapter.


	6. What You Lose for Life

**Alchemist aus Stahl**

**Chapter 6  
What You Lose for Life**

The living room cackled with the same electricity of his bedroom, changing the air. It felt both heavy and light: dizzying, and he could barely make out any details beyond vague shapes. But it was silent. Still. It shouldn't have been, with the dinner in progress. The family visiting had brought a kid along, hadn't they? They should have been making some noise, mixed in with Dudley and the television and his uncle's booming laugh.

But there was none of that. Just three hazy shapes on the ground that looked unfamiliar. There were no arms to greet him, take him in – or even to shoo him off or strike him. Harry felt weak in the knees; his family wasn't there. He didn't know why he was so sure, but they weren't there. They were gone. His aunt, his uncle, his cousin –

One of the shapes on the floor shifted. So did something behind him. Harry screamed and stumbled into something that burnt his sleeve. The shape on the floor straightened up. Coughed. Harry tried to find something, anything, solid without his glasses but he could find nothing. Just grey and white as if the walls were melting together –

Or the fog from a fire, he realised dizzily as the smell clogged his nose. Fire. It was a fire.

Something grabbed him from behind and his pounding heart thudded so painfully in his chest he was sure it would pop out. His mouth opened wide. He needed to scream. Scream and scream and scream, but nothing came out but a little croak and some yellow spots.

**.**

Harry blinked, his vision no better than before and a buzzing sound in his ears. His heart languidly pumped away in his chest, as though exhausted from his ordeal. He was exhausted as well: his muscles ached and stubbornly refused to move. Voices buzzed around him, none of which he recognised.

The mutters increased as he looked blankly around. The surroundings were mostly white, still fuzzy because of the lack of glasses. That was soon fixed however; someone pushed them onto his face and he blinked again, eyes readjusting to the curtain, the low light and the television that hung above his bed.

'Do you know where you are?' someone asked.

He shook his head, looking at the speaker. He looked clearer now: a doctor with a white coat over his shirt and pants. And a lady with a clipboard who didn't look anything like the nurses they showed on television but must be one. And Mrs Figg was there as well, wrapped in a cat-patterned shawl and looking old and pale.

He didn't understand where he was or how he'd gotten there, and his head still felt full of fog. 'Where's…Mum, and…Dad?' he asked hoarsely, thinking of the faces he'd envisioned, tried to resurrect – before retching suddenly as the image of those corpse-like things replaced them.

Someone hurriedly helped him up and pushed a container under his chin, and he emptied his meagre lunch into it. The doctor and nurse who didn't look like a nurse turned and whispered to each other. Mrs Figg just wrung her hands.

'I'm afraid your house was destroyed,' the doctor said finally, as kindly as he could manage. 'Burned to the ground. Firefighters managed to get you and your visiting guests out, but the rest of your family I'm afraid – '

'Charcoal,' Mrs Fig sniffed. 'Two lumps of charcoal and bone, and God knows who they were or where the third's disappeared to.'

'The police and fire brigade are investigating,' the doctor cut in, frowning. 'Though it seems…unlikely anyone in the back part of the house survived.'

His cupboard was at the back. So was the kitchen. The living room was at the front. Even if his aunt Petunia was in the kitchen, why weren't Dudley and Uncle Vernon in the living room still? It made no sense to him, and his head still spun and ached and that buzzing sound was still there.

'You should rest,' the doctor said, giving him a tablet of some sort, which he managed with some difficulty to swallow. 'We can talk more later.'

Harry agreed to that; he was still looking for his parents and the pieces in the fog.

**.**

When he awoke again, he had more or less orientated himself. He remembered the results of the transmutation in each gruesome detail: the way the hair looked dead and falling apart, the way muscle clung to bone and skin just peeled away. He remembered his time inside the gate, and before it: that statement, that he'd lose something precious to him in exchange for knowledge.

And now, that Number 4 Privet Drive had burnt to the ground with his cousin and aunt and uncle all gone, without a trace. Because there were only two sets of bones: those – _things_ he'd made when he'd tried to bring back his parents.

He shivered, poor eyes staring at the ceiling. He felt caught in a nightmare still – and maybe he was, because if this was reality, it had been warped to insane levels. Magic circles shouldn't cause such destruction, or such heart break, or such profound illusions. He waited to hear his Aunt's knock on the cupboard door; it didn't come. Instead, the buzzing of machines filled his ears: something mounted to the wall, something attached to his arm, something standing by his bed. None of it left, like a particularly stubborn hallucination like his happy dreams never were…or reality.

His aunt and uncle and cousin – the only family he had left – were gone. Disappeared; either they'd fled with the fire and left him or they'd died.

_Or the Gate took them as payment_.

And as absurd as it had seemed at first, it began to make sense. A family was what he'd desired the most, what he'd aimed towards. Instead of getting one, he'd lost what little he had, and his home with it.

'Is this how it is?' he whispered aloud, voice small and think but echoing in the empty space. 'Did I try to do such a bad thing?'

The curtains rustled but no answer came to him, or any awakening. So he had to accept that as the truth – because he needed one, a truth – and cry, because that was all he had left: his tears.

Later, he'd wonder why the fire spared him, why it couldn't have taken him as well so that he'd be reunited with his parents – or at least see them through a window from hell. That would have been better: preferable. Which was of course why Truth hadn't done such a thing, because it never gave its victims the easy way. It made them suffer and understand, in the hopes that one person might realise the true answer to his question, the answer that would let them surpass the limits of alchemy and the world.

But an eight year old almost shell-shocked with grief was unlikely to be that one. All he was was a little boy curled into a ball under the blankets, crying and despairing for comfort.

**.**

The librarian had heard the news and come, and from the little he heard of little Harry's mumbles as he cried himself to sleep and thereafter, he could guess at what had happened. It was a conclusion he could hardly believe at first. Alchemy was a science, yes, but it was almost magic with the lack of proof and consistency. There were no real alchemists in the world now, if there had ever been. No-one who tried those circles could manage anything.

There hadn't been any real harm in giving that book to Harry, he'd thought. It might even convince him to turn away from that quest – a quest he could easily guess at, when the young boy read those books where the dead came back to life far more often than the rest. It was easy to guess when he never came with his parents, when he never took things home. An orphan who felt he didn't belong there was what he was, even if he'd never said it aloud.

But it sounded as though the alchemy had worked – or done something. Or perhaps it was coincidental – but the finding only two sets of bones worried him. Two bones, two parents – not three, because no household fire was strong enough to burn bones to ash and no person had time to hide them. And if the guests in the living room had been unable to flee he didn't think the household could have. Neither did the police; everyone was at a loss for explanations.

He met Mrs Figg for a bit before coming in. She looked like she had an idea as well, but did not share. Nor did he. And he didn't know about her idea, but his was more or less confirmed when he mentioned the Gate: the legendary Gate that had been mistranslated across in the English version of that book.

And Harry could not read the German endnotes to know that. Which meant he must have faced them. Must have seen something, done something: succeeded in something, or failed something. Failed probably; somehow he doubted Harry would do something like this deliberately.

_He only wanted his parents back after all_, the librarian thought, peeking in at the child, asleep now but with tear stains on his cheeks and hands clutching the blankets tight, as if hoping to milk some comfort from them.

If only the author of the book was still alive, then they could ask her – but no-one really knew what happened to her before the second world war. But even if she hadn't disappeared, the likelihood of her still being alive would be slim.

He sighed. In fact, the entire Thule Society had disappeared around that time if he remembered his history right. Though there were other books, other scriptures – one which might lead to another contact. Not to fuel a new era, or the revival of an old one. Just for answers that everyone were in need of. Including him. Including Harry.

Perhaps excluding the police. An eight year old boy had no place in the problems of politics of any sort, be that world powers or petty arguments over what true science entailed.

**.**

**.**

**A/N:** Okay, that should tell you who the author is, if nothing else. Guest was right. :D It was Eckhart. As for the price…I don't think anyone did guess that one. And I don't think everyone will agree with it either. Though I've made a little change in canon (if Ed and Al both did the transmutation, Al lost his body as his payment and Ed lost his leg for his, but if Ed did it alone, he lost his leg and Al – his means to walk forward and what was left of his family).

More characters are going to start playing roles now…and Edward will be appearing soonish. And magic _will_ be appearing. :D Mrs Figg was just the forerunner of that.


End file.
